How HobSpace cracked the US market and got 20% demo signups during Covid-19 with Mailmodo

The Company

HobSpace started with a vision to nurture a child's critical thinking skills through the game of chess. Priya Goel, an ex-investment banker and co-founder of HobSpace, built a digital-first space for kids who wanted to learn chess but didn’t have the right guidance and training. With several grandmasters and a pool of professional trainers internationally, HobSpace imparted a chess curriculum on-par with national teams.

The Problem

When the pandemic hit, Priya saw an opportunity to grow the business globally. The shift to remote learning was a black-swan event and being a digital-first venture, they were rightly placed to make the best use of it. But there was only one challenge. While their product was ready and could handle global volumes, the marketing channels were not mature yet to scale globally. Their current lead generation channels were social media (Facebook and Instagram) and paid ads. Another reliable lead generation channel was through word of mouth referrals. Their current marketing communication channel was SMS. To expand to a new market like the US, they needed an effective outbound strategy. They evaluated email marketing platforms for the same - but in those trials they found that email cold outreach didn’t create the trust and warmth the brand was aiming for. Moreover, they found static emails with multiple redirections to be ineffective to generate leads and get demo bookings.

The most frustrating thing is email was the journey. One had to open the email, click on a link to land on the website, only the web page would have 600 different plans and one had no clue what they usually came for.
- Priya Goel, Co-founder, HobSpace

The Approach

Created visually-appealing AMP emails with Mailmodo: To effectively solve both their requirements of creating trust in the brand, and of generating leads through demo bookings, HobSpace explored AMP emails with us. By leveraging AMP capabilities, Team HobSpace could design engaging emails that showcase the brand look and feel while also inciting user action. A no-code platform, we (Mailmodo) empowers marketers with an interactive email automation software for higher in-email engagement & conversions. HobSpace wanted to expand to US markets and they were already using a cold email strategy to do so. However, these emails did not match with the brand’s fun persona. With Mailmodo’ increased design flexibility and customization, they created beautiful, cold emails with animations and interactions inside an email. This step helped them in breaking the ice with the parents, grabbing attention in a crowded inbox, and encouraging user action.

No-code Embed of calendar inside an email to shorten customer journey: One of the main goals of the marketing team was to get more demos and their static emails were not garnering the right attention or response. With AMP emails, Team HobSpace could integrate the demo booking inside an inbox. As a result, the recipients didn’t have to visit an external link and complete the entire booking within an email.

Mailmodo decreased the friction in the demo bookings and allowed us to integrate all the data with internal systems, making the experience smooth both for our customers and our internal teams.
- Priya Goel, Co-founder, HobSpace

Mailmodo went a step further in helping HobSpace streamline its customer acquisition process by allowing seamless integration of customer data with its internal system. The booking slots were fetched from the HobSpace servers and bookings were recorded directly in their internal systems.

The follow-up in case of missed demos was also automated, significantly decreasing the load on the presales team. Where the team previously had to reach out, schedule demos, send reminders, and reschedule missed demos, the automated email journey did it for them.

Subsequently, they had also moved their onboarding, demo reminder, payment reminder flows to Mailmodo.

The Outcomes

Increased demo bookings: The marketing team that experienced low delivery rates in the US saw an astounding conversion number of 20 demos through 100 emails after switching to Mailmodo. To emphasize this further, the SMS campaigns typically got 10 callbacks from 10,000 messages.

Better brand reach: AMP emails helped HobSpace convey its brand personality to its audience with increased design flexibility and customization and explain its offerings in a better way resulting in enhanced reach and positive word of mouth.

Penetrated new target market: HobSpace’s AMP email campaign was successful in getting a positive response from the US market and helped the startup gain its first US customers.

Going forward

Mailmodo redefined our customer engagement: our lead generation and nurture processes. We're excited to explore the potential it can create for HobSpace in our journey together.
- Priya Goel, Co-founder, HobSpace

With the kind of results the HobSpace team experienced with Mailmodo, it is no surprise that they're exploring more use cases. They are planning their rescheduling, class booking, referral campaigns also through the platform.

Referral program

Since trust was an important factor to get parents on board, HobSpace started experimenting with community and referral programs by engaging with mom communities. They have decided to build their referral campaigns through interactive emails and Mailmodo’s automation workflows with their database.